Why is your body so sensitive to pain when you’re cold?

Question

Why is your body so sensitive to pain when you’re cold?

In: Biology

Answer 1

There’s actually no clear consensus as to why this phenomenon is felt. The one that makes the most sense to me (a high school science teacher) is that the cold causes your nerves to send signals to your brain slower, resulting in you feeling that signal for longer, and your brain processing it as feeling more pain.

The ELI5 for this explanation would be: Imagine pain signals like an alarm going off in your brain, and your nerves as the things that hit the alarm button. When the nerves get cold, they hold down this button for longer, so the alarm goes off for longer, and your body thinks it’s feeling more pain.